Modifying Andersen 1.8 Meter Dish with Polar Mount/Motor

[arcticracer]

I am planning on fabricating a sturdy, light, and easily adjustable polar mount for a 6" Andersen dish. I live in Central Alaska, and am going to try to see what I can pick up FTA in my area. I don't have a FTA receiver yet, and have no experience with them. I have tinkered around with DBS and C-Band quite a bit.

What I am thinking about doing is using a high quality dish positioner with a 36 volt actuator to do the work and interface it with the FTA receiver.

I also have a 12" Paraclipse copy I am going to try on FTA, bought a prime focus LNB for it. It has been sitting unused for several years, with an 18" motor drive. I will build a custom switch to go between the dish positioner and the 2 motor drives. I expect it to be difficult getting the feed/dish optimized and tuned to track well.

I have not found much information on what FTA may be viewable up my way, anybody have an idea?

 

[Mr Tony]

best option would be Mike Kohl at global Communications (global-cm.net)

He lived in Alaska and knows the area well. He's done some satellite installs in Russia too

 

[Sadoun]

To save you some time and efforts, we may have a polar mount available for you. Call us on Monday to check. Ask them to check the warehouse and get back with you. This item is not listed on our website separately.

 

[arcticracer]

Polar Mount

I have talked to Mike before, I am sure he would know about Alaska FTA. I will send an Email. Footprint maps should help a lot too. That Sadoun mount looks like it could be adapted for the Andersen, would need to build in quite an offset, something like 30 degrees including declination.

 

[arcticracer]

Andersen 1.8

Here is a picture of the homemade mount currently on the Andersen. Another shot shows the excellent location I have, unobstructed negative angle to the horizon all the way across the arc. The last one is the rest of the (current) dish farm minus the BUD. 48", 18", and 40". Don' tell my wife, but a good view of the arc was one of the things I was looking for when I bought the lot.

 

[Cadsulfide]

Great view!

The Lyngsat maps are excellent for checking what you can and cannot see from your location. Galaxy 18 at 123.0°W - LyngSat Maps

 

[Mr Tony]

yeah but take them with a grain of salt...according to those maps the Alaska mux on AMC8 (with PBS & ARCS) is supposedly CONUS......even though its on a spotbeam to Alaska, BC , WA

Also its said some of us could get C-Band with a 60cm dish

 

[Cadsulfide]

yeah but take them with a grain of salt...according to those maps the Alaska mux on AMC8 (with PBS & ARCS) is supposedly CONUS......even though its on a spotbeam to Alaska, BC , WA

Also its said some of us could get C-Band with a 60cm dish

Good Point

 

[arcticracer]

Can get down to 82 degrees

As far as look angle goes, 82 degrees is the limit. I will find out what can be received here once I get things setup. I suspect the Andersen will equal the performance of the 12 footer, maybe do better. I found out how narrow the beamwidth is on a 6 footer, a LOT less than my smaller dishes. The 12' is going to be a challenge.

 

[Mr Tony]

Being in Alaska I'd say start with 137 & 139 but most of what is on there you probably already get with Dish

137 has
360North which I think is on Dish in the local areas
Program7 which is pretty much like GCI's Cable Channel 1

139 has
ARCS
PBS (Alaska One)
U of Alaska

121 has some good stuff

99W has a LOT of good stuff in my opinion